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Northern Ireland boss Michael O’Neil has provided his own assessment of Conor Bradley’s hamstring injury.

Liverpool has a mini defensive crisis with Conor Bradley’s absence creating a selection headache that couldn’t have come at a worse time for Arne Slot.

Bradley has been sidelined with a hamstring injury that forced his withdrawal from the club’s pre-season preparations and subsequently ruled him out of both the FA Community Shield against Crystal Palace and the Premier League opener against AFC Bournemouth.

In Thursday’s press conference, the situation took a turn for the worst when Arne Slot confirmed that Jeremie Frimpong suffered a hamstring strain of his own against the Cherries.

Frimpong is out until at least after the September international break.

The timing couldn’t be worse for Liverpool, with crucial fixtures against Newcastle United on Monday and Arsenal the following Sunday now approaching without either of their primary right-back options available.

Slot confirmed that Bradley only returned to training for “a few minutes” on Thursday, making the Newcastle fixture highly unlikely for the young defender.

This double blow leaves Liverpool scrambling for solutions, with Joe Gomez the most likely candidate despite his own fitness concerns following an Achilles problem during pre-season.

Alternative options include deploying midfielder Wataru Endo or Dominik Szoboszlai out of position, neither of which represents an ideal solution for such high-profile encounters.

Nevertheless, Northern Ireland boss Michael O’Neil has now provided a hopeful update and suggests that Bradley will be fit enough to be called up for international duty next month:

“Conor’s good.

You know he’d be frustrated because his pre-season I think was going very well and, like anything, there’s such competition at a club like Liverpool that you don’t want to be injured because you have to try and find your way back into the team,” O’Neil said as quoted by the Belfast Telegraph.

“But he gets opportunities?

There’s so many games with the Premier League season and the start of the Champions League.

“We just have to be mindful of where Conor’s at physically when we look at him in these two games,” O’Neil added

“But we anticipate that he’ll be ready to play and we’ll obviously have the dialogue with Liverpool to get their thoughts on that as well.

“Hopefully Conor can get minutes before we meet up on Sunday week.”

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